


Mustard Plaster

by willowbilly



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: 12 Days of Carnivale, Closeted Characters, Ficlet, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Power Imbalance, Relationship of Convenience, Secret Relationship, Sliiiiiight Lead Poisoning-Related Body Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 12:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17100218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowbilly/pseuds/willowbilly
Summary: “For what infraction?” Goodsir had asked, after Morfin had admitted to having been at the painful end of a cat o' nines once before.Morfin had broken into a wry, self-deprecating smile of sorrow, and had looked away. “What do you think, sir,” he'd replied.





	Mustard Plaster

**Author's Note:**

> For the 12 Days of Carnivale prompt "by candlelight."

“For what infraction?” Goodsir had asked, after Morfin had admitted to having been at the painful end of a cat o' nines once before.

Morfin had broken into a wry, self-deprecating smile of sorrow, and had looked away. “What do you think, sir,” he'd replied.

It was rhetorical, Goodsir knew, but it was also a note of recognition, a songbird's call echoing through the boughs of the forest, wary of the raptors. It meant that Morfin could tell, or at least suspected enough to trust, that Goodsir was another of his sort. A man who loved other men. A man who would also be lashed for his love, were it ever found out by those who weren't of their sort.

Simply acknowledging this of each other makes them safer to confide in and to liaison with. Conspirators in affection.

Goodsir takes the next step the next time that Morfin comes in to the sickbay. “I suppose I would be lashed just as you were, were my predilections ever found out,” he'd said, daringly casual, but even so he could not help but busy himself with the jars and their labels so as to have an excuse not to meet Morfin's eyes.

If either of them are wrong... but surely they aren't.

The deck of the ship is too solid for it to creak, but Morfin's boots scuff against the wood as he levers himself to his feet and his voice creaks instead, drawn from his throat into a light groan. The mustard plaster has not yet done its work soothing Morfin's migraine, and another of his complaints has been of achey joints. Perhaps plagued by the onset of rheumatism despite the fact that he is by no means an old man.

Life in the polar seas ages those who brave it even under normal circumstances. And their circumstances are creeping further from normalcy with every dark day.

It is the cold, and the stress, and whatever mysterious affliction it is which has stained Morfin's gums ashen.

Morfin had walked to Goodsir's side and had tentatively taken his wrist, to stop Goodsir's tinkering, and to get him to look at him.

The wet paper of the plaster had still been upon his brow, the square edges of it projecting out to either side. Along with Morfin's slack mouth, and the way that he had to tilt his head back to be sure that the plaster would not slip, his scruffy jaw therefore falling that much more into slackness, he was lent a rather comical, buffoonish air.

Goodsir would never make fun of him. He is just as much a fool, though he has faked himself a respectable English accent, and has even faked himself into sometimes believing himself something other than what he is.

“Though only if we were caught,” Goodsir continued in a murmur. He has learned to look up from beneath his lashes, how to disguise his bashfulness as coquetry. He is still afraid that he cannot hide it all.

Morfin had looked at him, searching him with his hangdog gaze, and then he had leaned in and kissed him.

They've kissed often since then and they're kissing again now, by candlelight, though the single candle has burned down to a guttering stump which is more smoke than light. It is pitch black outside of that candle's meager illumination, and there is a comfort in that. There is only touch and breath and the wet slide of their mouths, meeting and melting, together.

Goodsir does not particularly like Morfin, but he pities him in the exact way he pities himself, and he tends not to ever particularly _dislike_ people outside of Dr. Stanley's truly remarkable exception. In the dark, he could imagine Morfin as anyone else, but he doesn't. He doesn't want to, as he is more than good enough. _This_ is good enough.

They can offer each other some of the comfort they need, and in the darkness he cannot tell that the teeth in the mouth he's kissing are tobacco-stained almost to brown, and that the slick gums against which he curls his tongue are tender and black as a bruise, and he cannot see whether or not there is honest love in Morfin's eyes. It is better this way.

The flame hisses as it eats through the last of the wick and extinguishes itself in the pool of wax.

 

 


End file.
